Yeah, like anyone else, I hated pop-up ad’s.  They just flickered and appeared, oftentimes causing my computer to freeze up or stop downloading whatever webpage I was trying to view.  Back then, we had nothing that could block them.  We just gritted our teeth and dealt with them as best we could. 

            Finally, I convinced my parents that our computer was outdated and that we needed to trade up.  My father bought us an HP and it was lot like our old computer, just newer and more updated.  It had more memory and features and actually came with a pop-up ad blocker, which I quickly fell in love with.  We went from Windows 95 to Windows 98 and this computer’s processing speed put the old one’s to shame.  Still, we had trusty old internet explorer as our web browser and, yeah, there were still some problems.  Some ad’s couldn’t be blocked and some sites took longer to download.  But this was an updated computer and that was the internet browser on it so what could be better?

            After receiving an HP laptop as a gift and using that for a few more problem-ridden years, I finally broke down and went to the local computer store.  Gazing up at all the computers for sale, I chose an Apple laptop and have never regretted it.  Its processing speed is a little bit slower than I’m used to, but it’s efficient and whenever there’s a problem, it normally fixes itself.  In fact, it even downloads the new necessary software it needs by itself.  And the web browser it came with is safari, which is not only easier to use than internet explore, but it automatically blocks all pop-up ad’s unless I adjust the settings for it to do otherwise.  In two and a half years, the computer hasn’t broken down or crashed once.  I can even download and use the web browser called Firefox, which is the best one on the net. 

            The one concession I made to windows-based computers was getting the Macintosh version of Microsoft Word and downloading that onto my laptop and making it my default word processor.  My computer came with one called Apple Works, but there’s no mistaking that Microsoft Word is the best word processor on the web.  Not to mention, it’s the one that almost everybody else uses.  If you want to send files and receive them, making them Microsoft documents is generally the easiest and safest way to go.